Tomorrowland, Terminator: Genisys, Vacation, American Ultra (all 2015) and more…

Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland (2015) is a fascinating throwback Disney fantasy, one that uses wide-eyed optimism and wonder as its badge, versus the parade of gritty fantasy movies clogging cinemas. The plot: A teen (Britt Robertson) is given a pin that can transport her when touched and the object sets her off to find a recluse inventor (George Clooney). No more details. Yes, the Tomorrowland theme-park ride figures, as do robots, Tesla, and the Eiffel Tower. The movie has a fun kick. But problems galore: Cooney is miscast as a guy who hasn’t left his farm in years, but looks like a Hollywood spa’s MVP. The opening shots have him gabbing endlessly into the camera. That grinds. More so, the plot could have used streamlining to bounce rather than crawl. Story resets vibe like time killers, rather than misadventure lessons. Props to Bird for doing something different, though, and putting young females in the drivers’ seat. B

Left Behind (2014) is the second telling of the Jesus Returns book series that was everywhere during the 1990s. It’s as awful as the 1994 Kirk Cameron vehicle. No. This is worse. Nicolas Cage (!!) plays Rayford Steele (!!), America’s Greatest Pilot, on his way to London and a U2 concert with a Slut Stewardess. Jesus snaps His magic fingers, and all believers and children vanish. The Left Behind go whack. So much is wrong with this shit, it’s bewildering. What kills me: “Left Behind” seems made by wealthy bigoted white American Christians for wealthy bigoted white American Christians. The GOP elite. The people Jesus visited: The poor, criminal, outcasts… none are here. They are background extras, running in panic. Not worth our attention. Or God's. The one black female? Goes gun crazy on an airplane. Bigotry and conservatism together? Shocker. The fate of that U2 concert is more important than those Christ so loved. Goddamn this movie. F

Midway through Terminator: Genisys (2015), a school bus flips a somersault on the Golden Gate Bridge. Why? Because the CGI special effects studio guys said they could animate it. Divorced of any suspense or remote logic, the spectacle of James Cameron’s 1984 classic is fast becoming a faint, lost memory. Our leads in this time-warp sequel/reboot/snore are Jai Courtney (“A Good Day to Die Hard”) and Emelia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) as the same heroes from the original. They have no chemistry or intensity. They are voids. Hamilton and Biehn killed in the original. Arnold Schwarzenegger appears, and every time Clarke calls him “Pops,” my geek soul died. C-

Vacation (2015) is another reboot/sequel that casts Rusty Griswald (Ed Helms) as the bumbling dad in place of Clark (Chevy Chase), trying to get cross country with wife and kids. Mayhem ensues. Chase and Beverly D’Angelo appear. It’s not terrible, it’s not memorable, if you love penis jokes, enjoy. The prior films are name dropped in a fourth-wall busting opener. Seen the trailer? That’s all. B-

Seven Days in May (1964) comes from John Frankenheimer, my favorite director. This is another of his paranoid thrillers, but does not pack the same punch –- the whole ending is a long lecture -– yet the story resonates. A Pentagon lawyer (Kirk Douglas) suspects his boss (Burt Lancaster) of plotting to overthrow the White House in a War Hawk move meant to push war with Russia to the Kill ’Em All point. Look, I love Frankenheimer, but Douglas’ flat hero pales next to Lancaster’s evil demigod. A slight dip for John F. B+

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart re-team from “Adventureland” in American Ultra (2015), a stoner Jason Bourne comedy with Eisenberg as a slug with a mind-wiped CIA past, and Stewart as his devoted girlfriend. This is a ridiculous flick made for potheads, but a bust –- a plot twist comes as the lamest reveal outside of the crap in “Terminator: Genisys.” Props, though, to Eisenberg and Stewart’s unbeatable chemistry. C+

Desk Set (1957) teams perfect co-stars/couple Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in a workplace comedy that plays goofy tricks with a “super calculator” as a 50-years early precursor to the Internet, daring to replace research staffers. It’s dated, but that very fact is perfect. I laughed so damn hard. A-

Hercules (2014)

Some sons of god can’t catch a break. Despite his name and rep, Hercules – son of Zeus – is weak on film. Twice in a row. Early in 2014 we got SyFy-worthy “Legend of Hercules,” a bargain-bin film that underwhelmed even the lowest expectation. Now I finally caught “Hercules” – starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and boasting Brett Ratner (“X-Men 3”) at the helm with a $100+ million budget – and it also is a resoundingly limp flick. Ugly CGI, flat characters, a pedestrian plot that makes H into a human mercenary with a heart of gold (boring!) but the brains of a dumb puppy, I sat stupefied that adults made this film. A hammy John Hurt –- the only reason to watch -- gets to scream, “Release the wolves!” Ratner and his crap writers want us to think Kraken, “Clash of the Titans,” I thought Hounds, “The Simpsons.” D

Film Round Up, Part IV

Another quick dive through several films I've watched recently... 

Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) –- clunky title aside -– smartly carries the story of a boy warrior (Jay Berchanal) and his pet dragon, the former coming of age and discovering a family secret even his own father did not know. If “Dragon” 1 was a wondrous adventure for the young set, this chapter is for pre-teens mature enough to know adventure often brings crushing hurt along with glory. B+

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is the classically warped film noir with detective Mike Hammer tracking the ID of a woman he meets in the road, hours before she dies. This Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is too GQ clean -– I get it, Hayes Code -– but he can play cruel, within the Hayes Code. The famous leftward climactic turn is one of the great WTF movie moments, inspiring even “Pulp Fiction.” Quite a “Twilight Zone” trip. A-

Wrath of the Titans (2013) is a massive step-up from its predecessor, 2010’s “Clash of the Titans.” I gave that miserable CGI bore a C+, and was generous to do so. Somehow it begat a sequel, but -– shocker -– this chapter improves as Perseus (Sam Worthington) heads Down Under to the Underworld to save dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) from death. It’s still a CGI overload, dumb as hell (good guys fight demons with... fire?!!?), but it’s got a more humorous wink-wink vibe, and Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (as Hades) ham it up wonderfully. B

Massive film roundup…

I’m way behind on this little blog, though not sure many would notice. With that, I’m skipping the full 200-word counts and running fast. These films deserve much more consideration, but such is life…

The Judge (2014) has a cast to make any film fan swoon:  Robert Downey Jr., Billy Bob Thornton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vera Farmiga, and Robert Duvall. RDJ is the hotshot Chicago attorney who goes home to the farm to bury mom and war with dad (Duvall), the small town, big stick judge. 

When pop gets busted for homicide, guess who must save him? Every moment is preset and staged, most painfully when City Boy gets out his old bike for a country road ride for no other reason than to crash said bike so he can get saved by – just happening to be passing by – his old love. Boring. 

Worst bit: RDJ’s autistic brother who’s treated as a comic relief dolt who pops out his Super 8 camera from childhood at every inopportune time, just because the script needs it. Give the man dignity. Maybe he uses digital? Second worst bit: RDJ pisses on a colleague in a men’s room. That exact scene was in “Wolf.” Twenty years ago. Letdown. C+

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (2014) has some great moments at the end with sacrifices and heroics, but really it’s the overlong third chapter in Peter Jackson’s gonzo, throw in nine kitchen sinks adaptation of the slim children’s book by J.R.R. Tolkien. 

By the time Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his dwarf pals make it to the battle, not even after, I stopped counting armies or caring. Dig those giant worms that knock over a mountain and then quit the film back to, what, “Dune”? “Tremors”? “Battle” soars in large chunks –- I love Freeman –- and yet it is uncomfortably exhausting, a perfect example of a great filmmaker pouring on the sauce not because he needs to or should, but because he can, with his never-ending budget and line of CGI-world crunching supercomputers. I desperately want Jackson to think small next time. B-

If “Hobbit” is all excess, A Most Violent Year (2014) is a sparse, smart crime saga about a non-criminal. It’s a cinematic treat. Again proving he may be my generation’s Al Pacino, without hooting and hollering, Oscar Issac (“Inside Llewyn Davis”) plays Abel Morales, a NYC oil delivery businessman convinced he’s the lone good guy in a corrupt, mafia-run market. The catch: He is exactly that. 

But is that move –- calm and peace amongst threats and violence –- wise, streetwise? When everyone around you is crooked or comes from such, including a quick-to-anger wife (Jessica Chastain)? Director/writer J.C. Chandor (“MarginCall” and “All is Lost”) is fast becoming one of my favorite filmmakers, focusing on good, vulnerable men thrown into caustic situations, and seeing how they fall or rise. Abel’s path pops. 

Even when Chandor serves up genre tropes (the chase through narrow streets, the flailed man with a gun), he makes choices that surprise. The final scenes leave open the door for more of Abel, and I cannot wait to watch. A

Interstellar (2014) is Christopher Nolan’s science fiction head trip and ode to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but it is crucially, beautifully personal. It defies explanation and its own major faults which threaten to topple the whole affair again and again. 

Through sheer will power, Matthew McConaughey keeps the film on track as Cooper, a one-time engineer/astronaut now living as a farmer and widowed father of two children on a future, dying Earth where food is scarce. I cannot give too much away lest I spoil plot and the mystery. But some detail: Coop is tapped to lead a last-ditch expedition to a possible new planetary home, the last mission of a crumbling NASA (led by Michael Caine). 

More so than the alien worlds and spacecraft, “Interstellar” is about a father’s love defying all barriers to touch his daughter, here played by Mackenzie Foy. Love it, hate it, fall for the finale, or reject it, Nolan’s film demands payment, a strong immediate reaction, and then multiple viewings on the largest screen possible. This is no pedestrian film. It grabs the viewer. High point: A powerful score by Hans Zimmer that rattles and breaks the soul. A-

Selma and American Sniper (both 2014) demand more attention than I can give here, but such is life. “Selma” follows the 1965 marches led by Martin Luther King Jr. that riled Alabama, and shocked a nation from its false American dream. 

“Sniper” follows Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL sniper with the most confirmed combat kills ever, himself killed by a gun not in Iraqi but at home on a gun range. King and Kyle died before age 40. For all the bluster that “Selma” dare distorts history, it is “Sniper” that more severely ignores truths by giving Kyle a Hollywood adversary in the form of a Syrian sniper that is his equal. The two men never crossed paths. Clint Eastwood’s film makes this face off the linchpin of Kyle’s service and worship of war. Why add drama to an already startling life story? 

“Selma,” directed by Ava DuVernay, is the far better film because it dares peel back not just the ugliness of America, but the strife and troubles within the Civil Rights movement and King’s own life. And our own troubles today. Brit David Oyelowo embodies King as a man not the dream. 

And as Kyle, Bradley Cooper astounds as a very troubled man swallowed whole by war. Marvel how Eastwood and Cooper lay out scenes that could be patriotic rah-rah-rah, or be viewed as anything but. Eastwood cunningly uses silence during the closing credits to leaves us in the uncomfortable void of our own voices, discussing what we just witnessed, if we dare talk. Points off the scene where a Kyle is played, creepily, by a creepy doll. 

Selma: A, Sniper: A-

I recently came across an online column where great director Martin Scorsese once listed The Uninvited (1944) and The Innocents (1961) as two of the scariest films ever made. OK. 

“Uninvited” is amusing, not frightening, to my eyes. Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey play London-born siblings who move into an abandoned house along a rocky English coastline. They pay cash. Cheap. Against the pleas from a young woman (Gail Russell) with a past hidden in those old bricks. Soon moans wail at night, rooms chill cold, and the cat runs away. 

We know it’s haunted. But in 1944, haunted house flicks never had a ghost. I guess religious concerns? Whatever. Between night frights, the siblings get mixed up with Russell’s gal, a local doctor (Alan Napier), and a lesbian hypnotist (Cornelia Otis Skinner) who cringes offensive stereotype. The women scream. The men get brave and yell to the ghosts, “Go away!,” and the ghosts go away. I laughed. 

I freaked out, though, at the scary-as-shit “Innocents,” because it’s never clear what is going on. This is horror. We first see heroine Deborah Kerr, hands clutched, praying for a good boy and girl to love and care for. Then we cut to Kerr interviewing for a job as a governess of a boy and a girl, orphans of a philandering uncle (Michael Redgrave) who frankly tells her he has no love for the children. 

Kerr, now knowing the children need love, takes to their rural estate and serves attention in droves. Oh, but these children (Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens) are quite odd and possibly haunted by two of their previous caregivers, who died mysteriously, possibly after inviting the children to watch and join in on their violent sexual meet-ups. 

Disturbing stuff for 50-plus years ago. Directed by Jake Clayton and co-written by Truman Capote from Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw,” this is as good movies get. Watch it once, remain bewildered and shocked by what you have seen. Ghosts? Voices? Did that boy really just tongue Kerr? “Innocents” is an epic mind fuck for the ages. Where does that first scene fall? 

Both are shot with gorgeous black and white film stock that makes one wish every horror movie were filmed as such. 

Uninvited: B Innocents: A+

Not many films got my blood pumping in 2014, but Whiplash – seen finally on DVD – took hold and had me near inches from the screen as its tale of a first-year prodigy jazz drum major (Miles Teller) falling under the spell and doom of an abusive teacher (J.K. Simmons) plays out. 

This is riveting filmmaking, even if it is well trod territory with the oft-told tale of the perfectionist obsessive who will destroy themselves to perform. Think “BlackSwan.” The trick here is we’re not sure how genius our prodigy Andrew really is, and any of his talent is put off by sheer smugness and petty boasts. Andrew is, in short, an asshole. 

Writer/director Damien Chazelle, in his debut feature, has crafted a film you cannot look away from. He plays with audience reaction: Ae we rooting for Simmons’ bullying monster? See it. The music -– Chazelle tells more with notes than words –- is brilliant. It’s not perfect. 

If “Swan” derailed gloriously in the end, so does Whiplash” with a car crash that seems random. But it recovers quickly with a musical showdown that cuts like razor blades. Simmons owns the film and our souls. A

The Imitation Game (2014)

“The Imitation Game” wants to be a liberal rage against the evil that was British law for a century: The criminalization of homosexuality, and the body-and-mind destruction – execution, really -- of WWII hero Alan Turing, because he was born gay. But it’s really an (sorry) ultra-straight drama that’s played so safe and virginal, my church-going parents would not blink. Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerizing and coolly brilliant as Turing, the mathematician who is called on by Her Majesty to help break the seemingly impossible cryptic Enigma code used by the Nazis during World War II. Mr. Sherlock nails the part of the misfit thrown into the Army, where failure to fit in can get you shot or jailed. But Turing’s sexuality? Cumberbatch has nothing to work with. All sex is off screen, hidden like one of those impossible codes. Now I get Turing couldn’t act on desires during war, living under Army rule. fact. But here there is no desire. No anger. No frustration. Why? By the time onscreen Turing is forced to undergo chemical castration, one has to ask, why fret? This man, as written for the Oscar votes, seems to have been a unich all along.  B-

Tusk (2014)

“Tusk” cannot be unseen or flushed away. It deserves both. Pitched I suppose as a spoof on the “Human Centipede” flicks, once-talent Kevin Smith directs with the urgency of a fatty waving off farts as he sits alone on his watching bad TV. Justin Long plays a shock jock who gets kidnapped by a Canadian madman (Michael Parks) with a fetish for walruses. Yes, walruses. So, poor Long becomes a walrus. Yeah, Tusks in his mouth. Flippers. Funny mustache. Bodily morphed like the teens in “Centipede.” But it’s the audience eating shit here. Smith spoons it. Satirizing an OTT satire is a bad idea. Smith is all bad ideas. Halfway in, he drops in Johnny Depp as a redneck Canadian Inspector Clouseau hunting Parks’ psycho in a side plot that stops the film dead. Jokes about Canadian accents (!!) abound. (Are those still funny?) The tonal shift is so bewildering and Depp’s “performance” so wink-wink self-aware, it’s as if Smith is testing his most loyal fans’ patience: “Can you believe this shit!?!” Long gives his all. As a BFF, watch the lights go out in Haley Joel Osment’s eyes. Career panic. I can’t say Depp even cares. D-

From Russia with Love (1963) and The November Man (2014)

Sean Connery-era classic Bond “From Russia With Love” (1963) is unapologetically mean, early 1960s fun and danger, crude indeed, the absolute best of the 007 series as our hero knowingly enters a trap to snatch a top secret Enigma-code like device from the Russians. 

Except it’s not the Russians setting the trap, its SPECTRE, the terrorist group led by an unseen Blofed and fronted by a blonde thug (Robert Shaw) who seems to embody a Hitler Youth fantasy and a madwoman fascist (Lotte Lenya) with a steel-toe kick. Connery nails the film without lifting an eyebrow or breaking a sweat. His train car tussle with Shaw is one of the best fight scenes ever, and “Russia” only gets better with a boat chase, a helicopter terror hunt, and a finale inside a hotel room. It’s perfect cool. 

Now, later Bond man Pierce Brosnan goes all wrong in the forgettable, drab “The November Man” (2014) as a professional assassin who trains his protégé to never fall in love and birth children, and then secretly… well, you know. Right? I mean, here’s a spy film where you can guess every next spy-plot twist and sit back and watch it. Yawning. Brosnan is too good for this.

Russia: A November: C-

Winter’s Tale (2014)

“Winter’s Tale” is brain-killing romantic tripe with late-30s Colin Farrell as a 20-year-old (!!) street crook who falls for a young rich girl played by “Downton Abbey”’s Jessica Brown Findlay, the latter who dies of consumption in 1915. Add in time travel, a flying white horse, Russell Crowe -- awful, just awful -- as a demon with a gang of union thugs, Will Smith -- career worst awful -- as the most awkward hip-hop Satan ever, stars (as in suns, not actors) that are really souls of people, a magical princess bed that cures –- I shit you not -– little girl cancer, and none of that fuck-all mind-blow high-on-crack shit is as unbelievable as a 115-year-old NYC metro paper publisher paling around with a world famous food critic, both employed at newspapers in 2014. Shit. Really. Akavia Goldsman writes and directs, with all the talent of his “Batman and Robin” and “Avengers,” the 1998 Brit version. The ever-growing, Oscar-winning mediocre “Beautiful Mind,” making mental illness into spy game fun, seems his high point. D-

Penguins of Madagascar, Big Hero Six, Earth to Echo, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (all 2014)

“Penguins of Madagascar”  … I saw it to take my niece and nephew out. Ehh. Have you seen the “Madagascar” films from DreamWorks? The zoo animals who ditched the Bronx for Africa? Pretty funny, the first one. Since then? Yawn. Snooze. Get me out. This fourth entry and add-on to a TV series focuses on sidekick comic-relief characters of wise-ass penguins who muck about in the Marx Brothers vein. New Yorker humor abounds. This is their origin tale. Cause we need that. The Penguins join a MI6 type group led by wolf Benedict Cumberbatch to take down power-mad octopus John Malkovich and we get jokes that play on actor names: “Nicholas, Cage them!” and “Helen, hunt them down!,” and oh my God, an hour in I pled for it to end, and it would not, and my nephew and niece loved it and I Give Up! C- 

Meanwhile, Disney, with no small help from Pixar, has CGI animated film “Big Hero Six,” based on a new-to-me Marvel comic for youngsters that pings “Scooby Doo” with boots, capes and robots. Our lead hero is Hero (Ryan Potter), a teen living with his aunt and older brother in a futuristic mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo. Hero is a budding roboticist with a punk-rebel streak who graduated high school at 13 and takes on college at 14 after a minor scrape with the law for amusing back-alley robot fights, only to suffer a devastating personal loss. Brother dies in a fire. Ouch. With the help of a cute puffy robot nurse named Baymax –- who looks like Shmoo on steroids and full of air and built by the dead older sibling -– Hero investigates the fire and finds himself a super villain right out of a four-color comic book. The simple story aims young with some edgy humor (there’s a stoner kid who’s far more a stoner than ever was Shaggy) but its charms are strong and its “Stargate” references worthy of fan-fiction tribute. B

Speaking of childish films, “Earth to Echo” is a fast-paced, found-footage jumpy cam version of “E.T.” meets “Goonies” as a group of school kid pals find a robotic alien near their housing development. The one their being forced out of. (That was the kick-off of “Goonies,” recall?) Using iPhones and video cameras to record their every moment to save Echo -– he’s metallic, bur cute, chirping, and a bit void of personality -– the kids run up against Big Brother villains, find a female pal along the way, and in a funny moment, find the cool older brother asleep in a bathtub as a party. They take his car. Harmless and sweet, I think my young self would have grooved to the film’s adventure. Even if the stomach and brain of my current body fell camera seasick. One of the boys, Reese Hartwig, eerily reminds me of a school friend. B

Another flick I took the niece and nephew to is “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,” the third and apparently final entry in the comedy-adventure series with Ben Stiller –- he once long ago of grungy grown-up films -– as a guard at the New York Museum of Natural History. You know the drill, right? Sun goes down, the exhibits come alive, Easter Island head, dinosaur, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and cowboy (Owen Wilson) included, all mucking about, making “education” fun. And action packed. Here, the magical stone that powers our heroes is dying, and Stiller must zip away to London’s history museum to save the day. Why? Um, up ticket sales in Europe? It’s only mildly funny, despite a great M.C. Escher gag that plays like a classic 1980s A-Ha video and a cameo from a winking X-Man. Dan Stevens (“Downtown Abbey”) impresses as Lancelot. Williams? My heart breaks again. RIP. B-

Dear White People (2014)

“Dear White People” is the political college racial satire that was supposed to send the university where I work into gasps of “Oh, no, they didn’t!” hysterics. But most of the audience, every race and age you can dream of, chuckled nicely, sort of, while others dozed off or texted. If the best satires stay with you forever, think “Strangelove,” this is “PCU” on an Internet-sourced budget. Anyone recall “PCU”? Flick is set at some sunny liberal arts school that once served rich white kids, but still wobbles at that whole desegregation thing. Tyler James Williams -– he’s on “Walking Dead”!! -– is the closeted gay nerd trying to fit in amongst Black Power radio DJ Tessa Thompson and spoiled racist GOPer Kyle Gallner. One example why this is such a yawn: The climax has a party where white kids dress in black face to booze and laugh off slavery. The whole scene fizzles. The end credits show real images of college kids –- good Southern GOP children all, Hello, MSU -– doing the same, and I got out of my seat in rage. See? B-

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

Not a sequel, not a prequel, more likely a tax write-off, “300: Rise of an Empire” plays like a long-ass chunk of deleted scenes from 2006’s “300,” from director Zack Snyder and Comic Book God Frank Miller. Shot in studio with buff-ass actors against green screens in an endless orgy of deft Greek violence, guts, blood, and machismo, “300” fuckin’ rocked, killing every snob film instinct I hold. Sick, depraved, baseless fun. This thing, seven years late and directed by some shit I cannot Google, plays like a junior high school knock off. I grow tired rehashing it. Eva Green (“Casino Royale”) is the conquering bad ass b*tch coming to fuck over Greece, and hero Sullivan Stapleton, whose name sounds like a law firm but he is actually an actor playing hero Themistocles, vows to stop her. Blood flies. Tons of it. Gobs of it. Gallons. This is a film seemingly made by adults that vibes like it was dreamed by my war-obsessed 12-year-old nephew who has not a clue what war and violence entails. Except he’s smarter than this lot and can call bullshit. This is bullshit. D-

The Theory of Everything (2014)

Stephen Hawking’s life defies bullshit terms such as inspirational. Fifty years he has lived with motor neuron disease, his body crumbling even as he stuns us with his thoughts on how we came to exist. What comes next. “The Theory of Everything” is not about theories, but Hawking’s marriage to Jane Wilde. That’s enough story. It does not require delusions and conspiracies as was done to genius John Nash in the overdone “A Beautiful Mind.” For this love -– as you know –- succumbs. The life and mind and demand of Hawking’s needs are too much to bear, and that is the hook of this story. Directed by James March (“Man on Wire”), “Theory” knows fantastical love cannot overcome reality. And Hawking is about reality. He believes God is a myth; Wilde holds that God is among us. Their marriage cannot survive, not when she falls for a kindly man of God, and he for a pragmatic nurse. “Theory” bypasses many of Hawking’s history-resetting thoughts, but the filming of such, would be impossible. No? As Hawking, Eddie Redmayne breaks out as a major young actor of our time, while as Jane, Felicity Jones plays at war with the soul. B+

The Skeleton Twins (2014)

“The Skeleton Twins” has Sundance Winner embedded in its DNA: Dissatisfied white people moan, weep, break, and then manage to pull themselves together whilst living in a stunning home set among more stunning locales, here rural New York. It bleeds White People Problems. Yet it works. Hat tip to the leads. Former “SNL” cast mates Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play estranged twins reunited through attempted suicide. In LA, Hader’s heartbroken gay Milo slits his wrists. He is found before dying, and the hospital call to sister Maggie (Wiig) stops her from gobbling pills. Sister brings brother home, where they attempt to patch their shattered relationship, and here’s where “Skeleton” soars: Hader and Wiig vibe shockingly true sibling love, inside jokes, bitterness, and parent-inflicted pain. It echoes in every smirk, lip-synch romp, and cruel taunt. I was awed how good these actors bounce off each other. And I know twins, my brothers are identical. Sadly estranged. That vibe is impossible to duplicate. Wiig and Hader got me. Whatever screenplay director/co-writer Craig Johnson started with, and it’s smart despite the whole WPP slant that can be tiring, it fires crisply by its words being spoken by these actors. B+

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 and Gone Girl (both 2014)

Blockbuster films “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” and “Gone Girl” share little in common other than book source female authors, respectively, Suzanne Collins and Gillian Flynn. 

But, damn, these movies do show the difference of a bloated, ill-advised screen adaptation (that “Part 1” is a millstone) and another adaptation that takes the meat and bones of its source, cut the fat, and creates a raging animal that leaves one spooked, rattled, and –- most importantly –- wanting more. 

(Collins helped adapt her story, with others, Flynn takes sole credit.) 

If you’re smart enough to be on the Web, you know the basics of each film. “Mockingjay” comes from the third and final book in a wildly popular series about teen Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) as she struggles against a fascist future America where lives of the poor are held as sport to the rich. War is brewing. 

“Girl” follows a He Said, She Said format as a once good marriage has turned toxic and maybe deadly. The wife has gone missing, and the husband has “killer” inscribed on his scumbag forehead. 

The novel “Mockingjay” clocks in under 400 pages, and as with all of Collins’ books, reads fast. No stops or fluff. Fewer pages means less work to cut from page to screen. But success breeds greed. 

After the great sequel “CatchingFire” –- with its devastating emotional punches, great action and characters, and a cliffhanger ending –- became a smash hit even over its predecessor, watching this new film is a surprisingly dull overlong drudge. 

It’s half a real movie with dozens of outtakes crammed in. It makes the mistake of sidelining Katniss for nearly two hours of weeping and thumb-twiddling as she lets the boys take over. Ouch. 

The “Games” books and films have excelled IMHO over the awful, inept, feminism-hating “Twilight” series because Katniss has no time for romance or weeping, because she is too busy being the protector of her family. Very little of her is here. The studio now just sees dollars, and a dark, thrilling dystopian tale of and for youth is stretched too thin. 

We get scenes repeated -– Katniss stands over war rubble and charred bodies no less than five time, and two of those in the same exact location, where she ransacks, twice now, her ruined home for supplies. 

As the focus was nearly entirely on or about Katniss in previous films, we know grow our side-character roster, and God bless Philip Seymour Hoffman -– I miss him dearly –- most of his scenes are unneeded, with no need to watch him talking to Katniss’ PR handler (Elizabeth Perkins). 

Near the end, Katniss stands in a control room watching from afar as men go into battle, and she watches and watches, and spends what might be 10 minutes repeating, “Are you there?,” to the evil dictator who also is watching the rescue from afar, President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Much more happens and I won’t spoil a drop for those unfamiliar with the book, but just sitting there knowing we have another two hours of film to watch in what should have been a tight, relentless, three-hour film exhausts me. 

“Part 1” wants to sell itself as drums of war, but that pounding is all cash registers clinking, a move the wealth-crazed, Ayn-Rand-loving villains of this tale might ironically approve. The heroes? Katniss, and the haunted veteran played by Woody Harrelson? They would mutter, “I don’t have time for this.” 

“Gone Girl” –- even at two and half hours –- knows the best always leave you wanting more, be it book, film, or food. Flynn’s book was a helluva read, bouncing back for 400-plus pages between man and wife as they delve into their disintegrating marriage, he speaking in the present day after the wife goes missing and police and media come calling and ravaging; her from the past, in diary entries, sliding from happiness to despair. 

That’s three quarters of the film, until Flynn and director David Fincher don’t just turn the car around, they crash it wheels up in icy muck, and watch it -– and us -– sink and freeze. Part of the genius in “Girl” is the casting, with American sweetheart Ben Affleck as the husband and relative unknown actress Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher”) as the wife. 

Affleck’s Nick Dunne is a former NYC journalist turned bar owner, back in his Missouri sticks childhood home with a dead mom, a senile father, and a twin sister, and many dark secrets. His shirt always untucked, blue jeans under a gut, and a blank face, he is cold and aloof, so much to the point that the police starting wrinkling their eyebrows. Hard. Especially after the diary of the wife, Amy, is uncovered. Its most recent pages purging tales of abuse. 

Amy was raised a New Yorker and the child of parents who mined their daughter’s youth for books, children’s book that always seemed one step ahead of their own girl, one punch above perfect. “Amazing Amy” the book series was called. How can anyone stand to strive to be amazing, to live up to fiction? I will stop there. 

Fincher again has made a cold, daring film that cuts right to the dark pit of the soul, that little black ball rolled up deep inside, found in “The Game” and “Fight Club.” 

Flynn adapted her own book, gutting sections, condensing others, and adding new ribbons of dark blood toward the end. Spoilers? Harsh drama and part sick satire, “Gone” is a nasty trip through marriage and media, and personality, how people –- all of us -- perform in public, for one’s spouse or family, and even to ourselves, striving to meet expectation or get that life –- that perfect life -– we know we saw on TV, or dream about, or read about once. 

Like that book series. It’s toxic. (How harmful was a show like “Leave It to Beaver” to read, struggling American families?) There are great moments of crushing satire and criticism of the media that bounce the film along and ring true in our age where white wealthy women disappearing is national news, but not so for anyone of color, or low income. 

Tyler Perry plays the part of a sleaze lawyer who comes to Nick’s “rescue,” and he brings a dynamic, comedic charge to the film that saves it from going too dark, and he’s in a magical feat, our way into the film. 

This is a film to watch and talk about over booze and food, not read about. See it for no other reason than Affleck -- a successful director and new Batman -- crushing his role as an ugly man impossible to hate. He is a marvel to behold, as is the amazing Pike.

Yes, “Mockingjay” will make tons more money and get more press, but “Gone” is the film that stays the course. Unwavering.

Mockingjay: B- Gone: A-